You’re assuming that MondtDB is completely bug free, and wouldn’t let a bad actor execute something you don’t want on the box. C/C++ UDFs can do anything they want. From: users-list [mailto:users-list-bounces+david.b.anderson=citi.com@monetdb.org] On Behalf Of Ariel Abadi Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2018 1:46 PM To: Communication channel for MonetDB users Subject: Re: COPY INTO FILE - Folder permission Sorry for my ignorance, but can you please tell me why is a bad idea running it as root? In this particular case as I wanted to change the umask, I launched the two commands from my user directly. I firstly run the monetdbd start xxx, once it is started I start the database by monetdb start -a Is there a better way? And issueing the 2nd command is how the mserver5 starts. Is that your question? This in advance Rgds